PHYS 564: General Relativity (Spring 2020)
(NB: The lectures in Spring quarter will be conducted remotely using Zoom. Please familiarize yourself with this technology. I will likely be
using an iPad Pro with a stylus to interact with the class via Zoom. Sessions will be recorded and made available.)
TTH 11:30-12:50pm PAA A110
Instructor: Silas Beane B457 OH: Friday noon zoom and by appointment
TA: Kade Cicchella OH: by appointment
Subject matter
General relativity.
Prerequisites
PHYS 515. Note that this is an advanced graduate course in physics. Prerequisites for highly-ambitious undergraduates
are PHYS 226 or equivalent, and the core E&M sequence (PHYS 321,322 and 323, with 323 possibly taken concurrently).
Main resources
My favorite text which will guide the course spiritually is:
Gravitation and Cosmology, S. Weinberg
This text is somewhat compact. Fortunately, there is an excellent, encyclopaedic online text by Matthias Blau, which fills
in many details in Weinberg's text and provides many more useful and topical additions:
http://www.blau.itp.unibe.ch/GRLecturenotes.html
I can't emphasize enough how useful this reference is.
I will be using my own lecture notes compiled from many sources (including those listed below), but primarily Weinberg and Blau.
I will scan my lecture notes and link them to this page and I will link zoom recordings of the lectures as well. In the "suggested
reading" column of the calendar below, I will indicate relevant sections of various texts, including Carroll (as this seems to be a
favorite of many).
Other useful resources
Lecture notes:
Introduction to General Relativity, G. 't Hooft
An advanced course in General Relativity, E. Poisson
Advanced texts:
General Relativity, R. Wald
Gravitation, C.W. Misner, K.S. Thorne, J.A. Wheeler
Intermediate texts:
Introduction to General Relativity, L. Ryder
Spacetime and Geometry, S.M. Carroll
Introductory texts:
Gravity. An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity, J. Hartle
A First Course in General Relativity, B. Schutz
Homework, exams and grades
Your grade for this course will be based on the homework, which will be assigned approximately once a week. Two of the homeworks will
count more than the others and are referred to on the calendar as "exams" (homework=60%, "exams"=40%). I encourage you to work on the
homework in groups. However, the work that you hand in must be your own, and you must list your collaborators on your manuscript as well
as any references you have used (if you find a solution to a problem on the web, you must cite the url, if you find the solution in a book, you
must cite the book, etc.). No collaboration with other humans or intelligent beings is permitted on the exams. However, all other sources are
fair game and, of course, must be cited, as described above. The homework assignments and exams will (generally) be due on Monday in the
TA's mailbox in the physics department office.
Religious Accommodations
Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/).
Calendar